The Queen tours the Kingdom regularly but doesn’t have a holiday home.  She extends her visits to the coastal areas, staying in the homes of the high nobility (mainly elves and dwarves), which is the nearest the monarch gets to a seaside vacation. 

Eileen, in happier times in the realm, did much the same thing.  On earth, she and Derek go to Scotland at various times to enjoy the wonderful, sandy beaches and glorious scenery.  The only thing they dislike about the place are the midges though Eileen cannot tell her husband she has known worse - in her old world the worst she faced were fire breathing dragons! 

Jenny and Paul also like Scotland though they take great care not to go at the same time as Derek and Eileen. Paul feels he gets enough of his mother-in-law at home.  The journey north is the one occasion in the year Jenny wishes she could use magical transportation openly so she and Paul could get the benefit of it and save themselves a hell of a lot of driving.

Hanastrew prefers the forested areas of the Kingdom and spends many of her breaks at the Palace in the Queen’s orchards.  Hanastrew feels trees are the most wonderful things created regardless of world.  Eileen and Fresdian would have a lot of sympathy there.

Friendships are encouraged within each species group and tolerated between species.  L’Evallier (elf) and Rodish, later Balkish (dwarves) are known for their friendship though there are plenty within their own communities who disapprove and certainly don’t follow their example. 

It took the fairy royals centuries to get community relations to this level of tolerance and the Queen and Eileen know it’ll probably take a few more centuries before there are further improvements.  Still at least the infighting and all the magical damage that it does has stopped. 

There is only one version of Fairy Kingdom history - that produced by the royals - though to be fair it is accurate, thoroughly researched and is honest about the faults of its previous fairy rulers, especially Queen Gwendolyn.  Eileen has written papers (mostly lodged in the Royal Library) with her thoughts.  The less controversial get an airing now and again on FNN.  Her outright damnation of fairy mismanagement  is unlikely to see the light of day and had it been written by anyone other than her, that same someone would’ve seen the inside of a jail for a bit!  Certainly Eileen is no friend with the official keepers of the royal records.  Eileen always wanted to change any edicts they came out with, being determined to get at least some truth in the things. 

The Queen found the only way to stop Eileen causing trouble here was to send her all over the realm on all kinds of missions dealing with dragons, foul fiends and the like.  And this triggered Eileen's resentment we come across early on in The Trouble With Mother.

Eileen found out the hard way that honesty and friendships do not always go together.

Eileen had maids allocated to her but usually dressed herself. She tended to get her maids to help her with her admin, keep her updated with Palace gossip (especially that talk which would never reach the Queen’s ears) and to act as a testing board for her speeches.  She expected honesty from them and got it. 

The Queen thought Eileen’s fiery temperament would be resented by the Household but to the ruler’s amazement the opposite was true.  Eileen’s maids were devoted to her, knowing she’d always treat them decently and she appreciated the help she did allow them to give her.  Eileen argued it was more important for them to give her feedback than help her dress.  Eileen could manage the latter after all!

Wherever Eileen could cut through Palace protocol, she would.  It had the knock on benefit this inevitably eased the workload of the Household, who appreciated it.  The Lord Chamberlain saw it was one of Her Highness’s whims.  Royalty, in whatever world, are always allowed to be eccentric.  Anyone else trying to cut Palace protocol would have been given the derriere’s speedy exit before they had time to protest!

Eileen was probably one of the few little girls who never dreamt about being a princess, probably because she knew first hand all the disadvantages from a very early age.

The Queen also asks her teams of fairies, who visit other worlds, to bring back small samples of plants as she likes certain things about other worlds (though usually not the inhabitants, humanity especially) dotted around the Palace and its grounds as a kind of exhibition. These plants are put in an isolated part of the Palace gardens to see how they grow. 

The Queen, and her gardening team, are generally not worried about contamination from other worlds here.  After all it is the Kingdom that has the magical plants - the ones that eat the unwary passer by, those that grow upside down, those who spray their pollen at great distances and deliberately target the hayfever sufferers and those that give the bees and wasps that pollinate them so much nectar it is not uncommon to see swarms of drunken insects, a known hazard during the early springtime especially.

There are no plans to bring back examples of wildlife as there are concerns these wouldn’t survive the transportation process yet alone conditions in the Kingdom.  It is felt plants are generally hardier and adapt quicker to a new environment.